Wikipedia

Edgar Lee Masters

"Edgar Masters" redirects here. For the Australian footballer, seeEdgar Masters (footballer).
"Webster Ford" redirects here. For the American athlete and journalist, seeMalcolm Webster Ford.

Edgar Lee Masters(August 23, 1868 – March 5, 1950) was an American attorney, poet, biographer, and dramatist. He is the author ofSpoon River Anthology,The New Star Chamber and Other Essays,Songs and Satires,The Great Valley,The Serpent in the Wilderness,An Obscure Tale,The Spleen,Mark Twain: A Portrait,Lincoln: The Man,andIllinois Poems.In all, Masters published twelve plays, twenty-one books of poetry, six novels and six biographies, including those ofAbraham Lincoln,Mark Twain,Vachel Lindsay,andWalt Whitman.

Edgar Lee Masters
Masters as a young man
Masters as a young man
Born(1868-08-23)August 23, 1868
Garnett, Kansas,U.S.[1]
DiedMarch 5, 1950(1950-03-05)(aged 81)
Melrose Park, Pennsylvania,U.S.[1]
Resting placeOakland cemetery, Petersburg, Illinois
Occupation
  • Poet
  • biographer
  • lawyer
LanguageEnglish
Notable awardsRobert Frost Medal(1942)

Life and career

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He was born inGarnett, Kansas,to attorney Hardin Wallace Masters and Emma Jerusha Dexter.[2]His father had briefly moved to set up a law practice, then soon moved back to his paternal grandparents' farm nearPetersburginMenard County, Illinois.In 1880 they moved toLewistown, Illinois,where he attended high school and had his first publication in theChicago Daily News.The culture around Lewistown, in addition to the town's cemetery atOak Hilland the nearbySpoon River,were the inspirations for many of his works, most notablySpoon River Anthology,his most famous and acclaimed work.[3]

He attended Knox Academy in 1889–1890, a now defunct preparatory program run byKnox College,but was forced to leave by his family's inability to finance his education.[1]

After working in his father's law office, he wasadmittedto the Illinois bar and moved to Chicago, where he established a law partnership in 1893 with the law firm of Kickham Scanlan. He married twice. In 1898 he married Helen M. Jenkins, the daughter of Robert Edwin Jenkins, a lawyer in Chicago, and had three children. From 1903 to 1911, Masters was partners in the firm of Darrow, Masters and Wilson withClarence Darrow,the famous trial lawyer, andFrancis S. Wilson,who later served as Chief Justice of the Illinois Supreme Court.[4][5]In 1911 he started his own law firm, despite three years of unrest (1908–1911) caused by extramarital affairs and an argument with Darrow.[citation needed]

Two of his children followed him with literary careers. His daughterMarcia Masterspursued poetry, while his sonHilary Mastersbecame a novelist. Hilary and his half-brother Hardin wrote a memoir of their father.[6]

Masters died in poverty at a nursing home on March 5, 1950, inMelrose Park, Pennsylvania,age 81.[7]He is buried in Oakland cemetery in Petersburg, Illinois. Hisepitaphincludes his poem, "To-morrow is My Birthday" fromToward the Gulf(1918):

"Good friends, let's to the fields...
After a little walk, and by your pardon,
I think I'll sleep. There is no sweeter thing,
Nor fate more blessed than to sleep.

I am a dream out of a blessed sleep –
Let's walk, and hear the lark. "

Family history

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Edgar's father was Hardin Wallace Masters, whose father was Squire Davis Masters, whose father was Thomas Masters, whose father was Hillery Masters, the son of Robert Masters (born c. 1715,Prince George's County, Maryland,the son of William W. Masters and wife Mary Veatch Masters). Edgar Lee Masters wrote in his autobiography,Across Spoon River(1936), that his ancestor Hillery Masters was the son of "Knotteley" Masters, but family genealogies show that Hillery and Notley Masters were, in fact, brothers.[8]

Poetry

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Masters first published his early poems and essays under the pseudonymDexter Wallace(after his mother's maiden name and his father's middle name) until the year 1903, when he joined the law firm ofClarence Darrow.Masters began developing as a notable American poet in 1914, when he began a series of poems (this time under the pseudonym Webster Ford) about his childhood experiences in western Illinois, which appeared inReedy's Mirror,a St. Louis publication.

In 1915 the series was bound into a volume and re-titledSpoon River Anthology.Years later, he wrote a memorable and invaluable account of the book's background and genesis, his working methods and influences, as well as its reception by the critics, favorable and hostile, in an autobiographical article notable for its human warmth and general interest.[9]

Although he never matched the success ofSpoon River Anthology,he published several other volumes of poems includingBook of Versesin 1898,Songs and Sonnetsin 1910,The Great Valleyin 1916,Song and Satiresin 1916,The Open Seain 1921,The New Spoon Riverin 1924,Leein 1926,Jack Kelsoin 1928,Lichee Nutsin 1930,Gettysburg, Manila, Acomain 1930,Godbey,sequel toJack Kelsoin 1931,The Serpent in the Wildernessin 1933,Richmondin 1934,Invisible Landscapesin 1935,The Golden Fleece of Californiain 1936,Poems of Peoplein 1936,The New Worldin 1937, andMore Peoplein 1939.[citation needed]Two of his later volumes were published by theDecker Pressafter its founder, James Decker, asked Masters for permission to print his work; Masters agreed andIllinois Poemswas published in 1941 andAlong the Illinoiswas released in 1942.[10]

Notable works

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Poetry

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Biographies

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  • Levy Mayer and the New Industrial Era(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1927).[11]Chicago attorneyLevy Mayer(1858–1922)
  • Lincoln: The Man(1931)
  • Vachel Lindsay: A Poet in America(1935)
  • Across Spoon River: An Autobiography(memoir) (1939)
  • Whitman(1937)
  • Mark Twain: A Portrait(1938)

Books

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  • Maxmilian: A Drama(1902)
  • The New Star Chamber and Other Essays(1904)
  • The Blood of the Prophets(1905) (play)
  • Althea(1907) (play)
  • The Trifler(1908) (play)
  • Mitch Miller(New York: The Macmillan Company, 1920) (novel)
  • Children of the Market Place(New York: Macmillan Co., 1922) (novel)
  • Skeeters Kirby(1923) (novel)
  • The Nuptial Flight(1923) (novel)
  • Mirage(1924)
  • Kit O'Brien(1927) (novel)
  • The Fate of the Jury: An Epilogue to Domesday Book(1929)
  • Gettysburg, Manila, Acoma: Three Plays(1930)
  • The Tale of Chicago(1933)
  • The Tide of Time(1937) (novel)
  • The Sangamon(Rivers of America Series,1942), (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1988)

Awards and honors

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Postal stamp, issued August 22, 1970

Masters was awarded the Mark Twain Silver Medal in 1936, the Poetry Society of America medal in 1941, the Academy of American Poets Fellowship in 1942, and the Shelly Memorial Award in 1944. In 2014, he was inducted into the Chicago Literary Hall of Fame.[12]

References

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  1. ^abc"Edgar Lee Masters profile, ibid".Poets.org.RetrievedSeptember 10,2013.
  2. ^ProfileArchivedApril 12, 2017, at theWayback Machine,illinois.edu. Retrieved December 13, 2015.
  3. ^Profile,bartleby. Retrieved December 13, 2015.
  4. ^Association, American Bar (July 1979).ABA Journal.American Bar Association.
  5. ^Stone, Irving (1919).Darrow For The Defence.
  6. ^"Jack Masters profile".Jackmasters.net.RetrievedSeptember 10,2013.
  7. ^Ehrlich, Eugene and Gorton Carruth.The Oxford Illustrated Literary Guide to the United States.New York: Oxford University Press, 1982: p. 206;ISBN0-19-503186-5
  8. ^Charles Burgess, "The Maryland-Carolina Ancestry of Edgar Lee Masters",The Great Lakes Review,vol. 8, No. 2 (Fall 1982-Spring 1983), pp. 51–80.
  9. ^Edgar Lee Masters, "The Genesis of Spoon River",American Mercury,v. 28, no. 109 (January 1933), pp. 38–55.
  10. ^Hallwas, John (1983). "Poetry and Murder: Prairie City's Decker Press".Western Illinois Heritage.Illinois Heritage Press. pp. 187–189.ISBN978-9994715442.
  11. ^"Edgar Lee Masters (1869–1950) Papers, ca. 1927".Findingaids.library.northwestern.edu.RetrievedOctober 17,2016.
  12. ^Chicago Literary Hall of Fame website.Retrieved October 8, 2017.
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